Resolving the identity and nomenclature of the tumbling flower beetle genus Variimorda Méquignon in Canada and the USA (Coleoptera: Mordellidae)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
For several decades, the correct generic placement of Mordella oculata Say [currently Glipa oculata (Say), Coleoptera: Mordellidae] has been recognized to be problematic but has remained unresolved. The first goal of this paper is to clarify the taxonomy of this species, using morphology of parameres, antennae, and pro- and mesotarsi. The second goal is to study the morphology of the other Mordellini species of Canada and USA for the possibility that additional species have misaligned generic assignment. Results indicate that G. oculata belongs to Variimorda Mequignon, a genus previously unrecognized for Canada and USA. Existence of a senior synonym discovered through this project, M. pubescens Fabricius, means the revised name for G. oculata is V. pubescens (Fabricius), new combination, and M. oculata is a new synonym of M. pubescens. Additional results indicate four other Mordella species of Canada and USA and two Mordella species of Mexico also belong to Variimorda. Multiple morphological differences from M. oculata justify restored status to M. jovialis LeConte. Lectotypes are designated for the names M. pubescens, M. oculata, and M. insulata LeConte. The new combinations for the additional Variimorda species are V. insulata (LeConte), V. invisitata (Liljeblad), V. jovialis (LeConte), V. mexicana (Champion), V. novemnotata (Ray), and V. septemnotata (Champion). This paper also includes information on geographic distributions and identification, including a key to the five Variimorda species of Canada and USA. Quebec and North Dakota appear to be new provincial and state records for V. pubescens. Alabama, Iowa, and Virginia appear to be new state records for V. insulata.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".